What is New on the Macro Level?  By Hubert Marleau The Fed Will Delay the Expected Interest Rate Liftoff to September 2015 The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)had a very lengthy debate on January 27-28 about its strategy and timing for raising its policy rate from the current 0.25% level. Put simply, the rate setters got cold feet and the sense of urgency wasn’t apparent. There are several factors that support this renewed cautious stance. Firstly, the sudden plunge in oil prices is keeping the inflation rate far away from the Fed’s target rate of 2.0%.

EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION GDP Story: A Fairy tale turned to horror story Once upon a time a considerable time ago there was a far off land called Europe that decided to form a more perfect union, but a still a less-than-perfect union, and blend its data together using an average weighted by GDP and population to express conditions within its borders. To this day many people still feel it is the right way to summarize conditions in this land of milk and honey. And if the milk in Germany is fresh but it is beyond its sell date in the rest of Europe on balance the large German weight might make it all seem fresh. But I don’t think buying soured milk from France would taste good in your coffee because German milk is so very up-to-date. Yet, that is the nature of data from Europe and impact of the rules prevailing in euroland…not to be confused with Euro-Disney but in fact quite confusable with euro-Disney because of the fun ride it has been giving investors recently…weeee! I want to go to Greek-land next, daddy!